


One Day, Not Today

by Ren_Dreamt_The_Cosmos



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ich Will, Angst, Character Death, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mental Health Issues, Not RPF, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24036352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ren_Dreamt_The_Cosmos/pseuds/Ren_Dreamt_The_Cosmos
Summary: It's hard to live life normally after your closest friend dies.[Ich Will]
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	One Day, Not Today

**Author's Note:**

> Choo choo, the angst train has arrived.
> 
> They play instruments in every universe and I'll fight somebody over that
> 
> Also they would definitely have a longer jail sentence but... this is fanfiction and nobody gives a shit.
> 
> TW for mentions of thoughts of suicide (hanging oneself, slitting wrists, shooting oneself, walking into traffic, overdosing, etc.). Nobody commits the act though.
> 
> I'm not much of a skilled writer but hopefully anyone reading enjoys :)
> 
> [Based off of the Ich Will Music Video ](https://youtu.be/EOnSh3QlpbQ)

They all knew what the plan was from the very first time they discussed it. They knew how it was supposed to end. They talked about it, and Flake had known what his fate would be when he volunteered to be the one to wear the bomb.

They agreed that it was worth it, a sacrifice that was needed to share their message. To expose the idolistic behaviors of the media towards "bad" people and the emotionless need and lusting hunger for a viral story that the journalists and media in their world displayed.

They all knew that Flake's fate was sealed when they walked into that building, the bomb strapped to his thin frame with the detonator clutched in his grasp.

But knowing the plan didn't lessen the blow when the bomb exploded, taking Flake with it.

Talking about it and living through it are two very different things.

They had kept exhilarated grins on their face when they heard the bomb detonate within the building behind them, shouting and laughing exuberantly as they were pressed against the sun-warmed concrete, gleefully watching as debris rained down around them as the policemen and women restrained them and slapped cold cuffs around their wrists.

The cameras watched their every move, the mics that were roughly shoved in their faces recorded every word they threw forth as they were lead through the crowds to the awaiting police cars. The cacophony of shouting voices asked for their motivations, their story.

But once they were booked and deposited in their holding cell, the door slammed shut and they were left alone.

And they mourned. Bright smiles dropped off of faces as tears began to drip down dusty cheeks. Heavy sighs and stifled sobs echoed throughout the small cell.

Flake was gone. 

It had been a year.

Till never went in the garage anymore. That's where they put Flake's beloved keyboards once they had returned to their home after serving their sentence. They didn't want to see them as a constant reminder of what they had done every day, but nobody could bare throwing them out or giving them to someone else.

It seemed Till's leg hurt more than ever these days., He would spend most of his time alone, sitting on the bench in the backyard and blankly staring at the blank pages in his notebook, a pencil held loosely in his large hands as it hovered over the white pages.

The pencil never touched the paper.

He hadn't written a single line of lyrics or poetry since before the demonstration at the bank. Now he would just sit quietly and rest a hand against his leg, trembling fingers digging into flesh as muscle pains wracked his body, a grimace growing upon his face as he fought through his physical and emotional pain. If he turned to less than legal ways to numb the pain, nobody mentioned it. He wasn't alone.

Paul smiled less these days. Nobody could remember the last time he laughed. During the heist, most likely. He hadn't had a reason to laugh since then.

He tried his best to keep the others spirits up, but it was a fruitless effort in the end.

When he inevitably failed at his attempts to put a smile on their lips, he would fall silent and would retreat to the study, where he would turn to the bottle. He drowned his sorrows in an effort to drown out the countless memories of Flake that cluttered his regret-filled mind. More often than not, he failed to forget. He could never get the memories of his friend to fade. He could never forget the way Flake's smile would make him feel, how the man would gleefully talk on and on for hours as he shared tidbits and comments about some book or publication he had read recently as Paul listened, or how Flake would happily listen to Paul as the man demonstrated a new riff he learned on the guitar or a new section Paul had written up for a song.

That didn't happen anymore.

The house was silent nowadays, nobody dared to speak more than short, simple words and sentences. The silence pressed in on them at every second, it filled their heads and gave them no distraction from the dark thoughts they were plagued by.

Richard turned to rage. The walls in their home now had more holes than they could care to count - they barely noticed a new addition these days. Ollie had spent countless minutes the past months carefully disinfected and wrapping the knuckles on the man's flesh hand after the man carelessly punched some surface that was too tough for him in an attempt to bury his feelings behind the adrenaline pain gave him.

His prosthetic hand - which had once been smooth and handsome looking - was now scratched and covered with gouges and scrapes from his fights with inanimate objects. He used to panic over the smallest marking, but he didn't care anymore.

His hair - which had once been lovingly cared for and painstakingly styled each and every day - was now shaggy and messy. He rarely remembered to take a shower, so his hair was often greasy and dirty as well. His once carefully painted and trimmed nails were now chipped and grown out, the only color present on them now was the dark crimson of dried blood that splattered across his nails and hands as he took out his anger on anything that would put up some sort of resistance, and the dark browns and black lines of dirt that accumulated beneath his nails due to lack of hygiene and personal care.

Nobody mentioned it. Everybody understood, they were the same.

Richard just couldn't bring himself to care about how he looked anymore, he just avoided mirrors so he didn't have to look at himself. He felt empty.

Looks didn't seem to matter when your friend was dead because of you and your life was falling apart one day at a time.

Schneider was spiraling. Each day was harder than the last. Each time he had to get out of bed, his limbs felt heavier and heavier. He regretted each time he woke up and opened his eyelids more and more.

When his seeing-eye would pass over the bookshelves that held the many books that were bookmarked and filled with scribbled notes and comments written by his passed-on friend, when his gaze would linger on the photo settled on the table beside the front door, his limbs would shake, he would tremble as the mind filled with rage and sorrow.

When he focused on the wide grin set upon the face of Flake, who had the arms of Schneider and Till thrown care-freely around his shoulders, the group forever frozen in time and displayed in the photo, he would shut down. He would often spend hours stood in a single spot somewhere in the house, his knuckles whitening as he desperately clutched whatever item had sparked the memories of Flake, wishing he could go back and prevent his death.

But he couldn't.

Ollie had thoughtfully gone out and made copies of all the photos in the house that Flake was present in, along with a large number of empty picture frames. Schneider had accidentally - or purposefully - shattered the glass of the picture frames due to how tightly he would grip them, and the pictures usually ended up covered in blood and tears or they were ripped before Ollie could get the trembling man to release them. The floors and carpets of their home were speckled with dried blood, Ollie gave up trying to keep them clean after the first few weeks back.

It was pointless.

Ollie was doing the best out of the five of them.

Truthfully, that really wasn't saying much.

He was the only one that would go outside, into the "real world". He was the one that brought the groceries, the one that fetched the mail and paid the bills. He was the one that bought Paul's alcohol and kept their supplies of disinfectants, antibiotics, and bandages stocked to keep Richard from running through them.

He was the one that urged and herded the others to their seats around the dinner table. He was the one that placed plates of food in front of them and settled forks and spoons in their limp hands. He was the one that made sure they ate and drank water. He was the one that checked in and made sure they were still breathing each morning.

He was the one that made sure Till would come inside at night. He would grab the man's arm, pushing his cane into his grip and leading him from his bench, having the man follow him inside and up the stairs to his room. Ollie would then carefully take Till's pen and notepad out of his limp hands, settling them carefully on the nightstand before helping the man into his bed and covering him with a blanket, wishing him a good night before turning off the lights and slipping out the door.

He was the one that confiscated the bottles from Paul when the man started crying too much to continue drinking, he was the one that would make the man rest, and he was the one that would be there in the morning with a silent offering of pills to help curb the pain of his raging headache and hangover. He was the one that rested a comforting hand on Paul's back as the man bent in half over the toilet, throwing up just bile and alcohol as that was all that was in his stomach.

He was the one that would find Richard after the man had an angered rampage around the house. He was the one that would lead him to the bathroom and would settle the black-haired man on the seat of the toilet. He was the one that would be found kneeling at Richard's feet and gently holding his bruised and bloodied knuckles as he careful poured disinfectant over the scrapes and wrapped soft white bandages around them, even though his efforts would be rendered pointless by the next day when Richard would inevitably decide that the walls of their home needed another hole to decorate them.

He was the one that would take whatever item that was clutched in Schneider's shaking hands away from him, leading him to the couch and turning on some mind-numbing show or film to distract the man from the monsters that called his mind home, settling a soft blanket across his lap and silently sitting next to him with a comforting hand resting on his leg.

But Ollie still spent many nights tossing a bottle back and forth between his hands as he sat on the edge of his bed, the dozens of pills loudly clattering against the plastic as he blankly tracked the container with his eyes, thinking about how easy it would be to fall asleep and never have to wake up to the thoughts of his dead friend again. To have no more responsibilities or never-ending guilt. There was also a long coil of rope in his closet, and on very bad days he would fetch it and run it through his hands, macabre thoughts of how it would feel to have it tighten around his neck and take him from the world that he had grown to hate due to the absence of his friend.

But they didn't end it.

Till didn't take the pistol he kept in his nightstand and put a bullet in his head after yet another day of failure to improve.

Paul didn't slit his wrists with the shattered and dreadfully sharp remnants of the countless bottles he had thrown to the ground once they ran out of the mind-numbing alcohol he drank in an attempt to forget.

Richard didn't go out and purposefully get himself killed in a fight, despite thinking about it countless times.

Schneider didn't walk into oncoming traffic and get hit like he often fantasized about when watching the car races on the television.

Ollie didn't tie up and use the rope that he left hidden away in his closet. He didn't down those pills in the bottle that he kept tucked under his pillows like a dirty secret.

They might have wanted to, but they owed it to Flake not to.

They would never, as that would render Flake's sacrifice pointless. They needed to get back up, they needed to spread their message again.

But one day they would see their friend again.

One day, not today.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you enjoyed idk
> 
> Point out mistakes and I'll fix em
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://explorersnotepad.tumblr.com/)


End file.
